There's a weird thing going on where people forget Robert Byrd, an actual former Klansman, was Senate Majority Leader in the late 80s. This stuff should not be a shock. Maybe it's disqualifying, but I don't think it's impeachable. There's no second term in VA so I don't think Northam will resign.

I'd wager that on the Virginia White Dude Racism Bell Curve, Northam was not an extreme outlier in the 80s.

“War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. Other simple remedies were within their choice. You know it and they know it, but they wanted war, and I say let us give them all they want.”
― William Tecumseh Sherman

There's a weird thing going on where people forget Robert Byrd, an actual former Klansman, was Senate Majority Leader in the late 80s. This stuff should not be a shock. Maybe it's disqualifying, but I don't think it's impeachable. There's no second term in VA so I don't think Northam will resign.

I'd wager that on the Virginia White Dude Racism Bell Curve, Northam was not an extreme outlier in the 80s.

We West Virginians love Bob Byrd. Yep. Was in a part of the Klan before it became associated with the hate of 50s/60s and today. Eventually, in West Virginia it was changed to the West Virginia Coon Hunters Club. I wish I was making this up. But I am not. Bob sure could play a fiddle and was shockingly and dismissively shrewd.

The cool thing about training is that becoming more sexy is just a side effect........

I had never thought about this, even though growing up in VA and being a Civil War buff, visiting the battlefields and museums.

The Confederate statues of Richmond’s Monument Avenue weren’t erected to honor the service of brave warriors. Those soldiers had been dead for decades before the statues went up. No, the statues were put up by white people, beginning in the 1890s, to remind black people that, despite all that nonsense of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, as well as the so-called Reconstruction, we are back, and you are back down. The towering likenesses of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson weren’t put up to celebrate history or heritage; they were put up as a message: The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution aren’t going to help you black folks because the South has risen from that humiliation. Jim Crow — a name rooted in blackface mockery — is king.

If you doubt that well-documented history — if you are tempted to buy the “heritage, not hate” rhetoric — ask yourself this question: “Where are the statues of James Longstreet?” Remember: Longstreet was Lee’s most trusted general, his second-in-command, his “Old War Horse.” Longstreet was a brave and talented warrior for the Confederacy from beginning to end. But there aren’t any Longstreet statues in Richmond — and there weren’t any at all until 1998, at Gettysburg. That’s because his service to the United States continued after the Civil War, and he did something inconsistent with the purpose of the statues, and of blackface: He treated African Americans as citizens of the United States. Longstreet agreed to serve his reunified country, joined Lincoln’s Republican Party and helped Grant protect the rights of newly freed black Americans.

Longstreet committed two unforgivable sins in the eyes of white supremacists: He criticized Lee’s war leadership, and he led an African American militia to put down an 1874 white rebellion in Louisiana. That’s why this central figure in Civil War history is not depicted among the other Confederate statues in Richmond. The statues were about only a certain kind of heritage, just as blackface was about a certain kind of storytelling. It was about hate, not history or art.

I had never thought about this, even though growing up in VA and being a Civil War buff, visiting the battlefields and museums.

The Confederate statues of Richmond’s Monument Avenue weren’t erected to honor the service of brave warriors. Those soldiers had been dead for decades before the statues went up. No, the statues were put up by white people, beginning in the 1890s, to remind black people that, despite all that nonsense of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, as well as the so-called Reconstruction, we are back, and you are back down. The towering likenesses of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson weren’t put up to celebrate history or heritage; they were put up as a message: The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution aren’t going to help you black folks because the South has risen from that humiliation. Jim Crow — a name rooted in blackface mockery — is king.

If you doubt that well-documented history — if you are tempted to buy the “heritage, not hate” rhetoric — ask yourself this question: “Where are the statues of James Longstreet?” Remember: Longstreet was Lee’s most trusted general, his second-in-command, his “Old War Horse.” Longstreet was a brave and talented warrior for the Confederacy from beginning to end. But there aren’t any Longstreet statues in Richmond — and there weren’t any at all until 1998, at Gettysburg. That’s because his service to the United States continued after the Civil War, and he did something inconsistent with the purpose of the statues, and of blackface: He treated African Americans as citizens of the United States. Longstreet agreed to serve his reunified country, joined Lincoln’s Republican Party and helped Grant protect the rights of newly freed black Americans.

Longstreet committed two unforgivable sins in the eyes of white supremacists: He criticized Lee’s war leadership, and he led an African American militia to put down an 1874 white rebellion in Louisiana. That’s why this central figure in Civil War history is not depicted among the other Confederate statues in Richmond. The statues were about only a certain kind of heritage, just as blackface was about a certain kind of storytelling. It was about hate, not history or art.

I don’t claim to understand the affinity for the confederacy among southerners, but if that were true wouldn’t there be more statues of Forrest then?

"Liberalism is arbitrarily selective in its choice of whose dignity to champion." Adrian Vermeule

I had never thought about this, even though growing up in VA and being a Civil War buff, visiting the battlefields and museums.

The Confederate statues of Richmond’s Monument Avenue weren’t erected to honor the service of brave warriors. Those soldiers had been dead for decades before the statues went up. No, the statues were put up by white people, beginning in the 1890s, to remind black people that, despite all that nonsense of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, as well as the so-called Reconstruction, we are back, and you are back down. The towering likenesses of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson weren’t put up to celebrate history or heritage; they were put up as a message: The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution aren’t going to help you black folks because the South has risen from that humiliation. Jim Crow — a name rooted in blackface mockery — is king.

If you doubt that well-documented history — if you are tempted to buy the “heritage, not hate” rhetoric — ask yourself this question: “Where are the statues of James Longstreet?” Remember: Longstreet was Lee’s most trusted general, his second-in-command, his “Old War Horse.” Longstreet was a brave and talented warrior for the Confederacy from beginning to end. But there aren’t any Longstreet statues in Richmond — and there weren’t any at all until 1998, at Gettysburg. That’s because his service to the United States continued after the Civil War, and he did something inconsistent with the purpose of the statues, and of blackface: He treated African Americans as citizens of the United States. Longstreet agreed to serve his reunified country, joined Lincoln’s Republican Party and helped Grant protect the rights of newly freed black Americans.

Longstreet committed two unforgivable sins in the eyes of white supremacists: He criticized Lee’s war leadership, and he led an African American militia to put down an 1874 white rebellion in Louisiana. That’s why this central figure in Civil War history is not depicted among the other Confederate statues in Richmond. The statues were about only a certain kind of heritage, just as blackface was about a certain kind of storytelling. It was about hate, not history or art.

This is that bullshit that I hate.

First, those statues from the 1890s were not put up to intimidate black folks. Their placement alone in the centers of towns are exactly the places you wouldn't put something if you were targeting black people because they were on the margins. Jim Crow laws started almost immediately after the Civil War, during reconstruction, and were in full swing by the 1870s. And let's not pretend that modern SJW commissars have any sense at all about the mindset of 1890s white Southerners. Occam's razor says they made the monuments for the stated reason: to honor the warriors of the Confederacy at a time when those men were dying out.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, so fucking what if whites and blacks don't always see eye to eye? This is a country built on the freedom of conscience, the freedom to disagree, the freedom to not like all people equally. Why is that a problem? I'll tell you why: because the goal of "social justice" is ideological purity and the abolition of any line of thinking other than their own. And that, friend, is more dangerous than any stupid racist will ever be. These people want to control your mind. Don't let them.

Third, regarding the "heritage, not hate" Longstreet aside, total garbage from start to finish. If this author really wanted to see monuments to a prominent Confederate who went on to treat black Americans as full citizens of the United States then let's put a monument to Nathan Bedford Forrest in every town and village in the South. He was a cotton grower, cattleman, slave trader before the war. He was a military genius known for massacre at Fort Pillow during the war. After the war? First Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. But he didn't stop there. When he became convinced that they were becoming a force of oppression, he induced them to disband. He gave speeches promoting racial harmony, including these words to a black audience, on July 5, 1875:

I want you to come nearer to us. When I can serve you I will do so. We have but one flag, one country; let us stand together. We may differ in color, but not in sentiment Many things have been said about me which are wrong, and which white and black persons here, who stood by me through the war, can contradict. Go to work, be industrious, live honestly and act truly, and when you are oppressed I'll come to your relief. I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for this opportunity you have afforded me to be with you, and to assure you that I am with you in heart and in hand.

But you will never hear any calls for a statue of Forrest, or of Longstreet, because they are dishonest about their real motives which have nothing to do with racial harmony.

"Prepare your hearts as a fortress, for there will be no other." -Francisco Pizarro González

Somehow I forgot to take that class, even though growing up and attending college in VA.

It's all good now.

Also Friday, a Democratic senator from Northern Virginia broke with his caucus and called for Northam to remain in office as the governor tries to survive a scandal that started with a racist photo in Northam’s medical school yearbook.

Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax City, said in a news release he won’t call for Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, Attorney General Mark Herring or anyone else to resign “until it is obvious that they have committed a crime in office or their ability to serve is irredeemably compromised.”

Petersen said the photo in Northam’s yearbook “truly shocked the conscience,” but said he chose to wait a week and talk to friends and constituents before making a statement about Northam. He held a town hall meeting at the largest African-American church in his district, First Baptist of Vienna.

Nafod, I know you saw my post. No human language can express the disappointment I'm feeling with you right now.

I tried to post from my phone, but repeatedly got “Mario”ed.

Occam's razor says they made the monuments for the stated reason: to honor the warriors of the Confederacy at a time when those men were dying out.

That’s the whole point of the remark on Longstreet. He fought from beginning to end, even surviving a severe wounding that paralyzed his arm and returning to battle. Yet few to no statues. I’ve been to Ft Bragg, Gordon, Hood, Pickett, Polk. There is no Ft Longstreet. I’d never really noticed that before, even being a Civil War buff.

It’s obvious that naming all that stuff and putting up monuments was at a minimum a big fuck you to the 37% of the US citizens in those states that those people fought to keep enslaved. Pretty sure that is beyond debate. It’d be like putting up a statue to Goering in a German town center where Jews live.

The South used those 37% for power in Congress, but successfully suppressed their vote. For example...

Under the new constitution and application of literacy practices, black voters were dropped in great number from the registration rolls: by 1896, in a state where according to the 1890 census blacks numbered 728,934 and comprised nearly sixty percent of the total population,[39] only 5,500 black voters had succeeded in registering.[25]

Yet they got the number of congressmen and electoral votes based in the full population.

I had never thought about this, even though growing up in VA and being a Civil War buff, visiting the battlefields and museums.

The Confederate statues of Richmond’s Monument Avenue weren’t erected to honor the service of brave warriors. Those soldiers had been dead for decades before the statues went up. No, the statues were put up by white people, beginning in the 1890s, to remind black people that, despite all that nonsense of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, as well as the so-called Reconstruction, we are back, and you are back down. The towering likenesses of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson weren’t put up to celebrate history or heritage; they were put up as a message: The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution aren’t going to help you black folks because the South has risen from that humiliation. Jim Crow — a name rooted in blackface mockery — is king.

If you doubt that well-documented history — if you are tempted to buy the “heritage, not hate” rhetoric — ask yourself this question: “Where are the statues of James Longstreet?” Remember: Longstreet was Lee’s most trusted general, his second-in-command, his “Old War Horse.” Longstreet was a brave and talented warrior for the Confederacy from beginning to end. But there aren’t any Longstreet statues in Richmond — and there weren’t any at all until 1998, at Gettysburg. That’s because his service to the United States continued after the Civil War, and he did something inconsistent with the purpose of the statues, and of blackface: He treated African Americans as citizens of the United States. Longstreet agreed to serve his reunified country, joined Lincoln’s Republican Party and helped Grant protect the rights of newly freed black Americans.

Longstreet committed two unforgivable sins in the eyes of white supremacists: He criticized Lee’s war leadership, and he led an African American militia to put down an 1874 white rebellion in Louisiana. That’s why this central figure in Civil War history is not depicted among the other Confederate statues in Richmond. The statues were about only a certain kind of heritage, just as blackface was about a certain kind of storytelling. It was about hate, not history or art.

I don’t claim to understand the affinity for the confederacy among southerners, but if that were true wouldn’t there be more statues of Forrest then?

There’s a ton of stuff down in Tennessee named after him, and statues too. And counties, cities, and state forests.

Here’s one that was put up in 1998...

Fuck, that’s kind of awesome...

From Wikipedia.

The monument was designed by Jack Kershaw, a Vanderbilt University alumnus, co-founder of the League of the South, a white nationalist and white supremacist organization, and a former lawyer to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's killer.[2] In the face of public criticism of the installation, Kershaw defended the statue by saying, "Somebody needs to say a good word for slavery."[2]

The woman who has accused Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of raping her while they were Duke University students 20 years ago also says a Duke basketball player raped her.

Meredith Watson’s lawyer released a statement on Friday night claiming Watson was also raped by a basketball player and, when she reported the attack to a school administrator, received no assistance.

The statement did not give the name of the player nor the name of the school administrator, and a spokesperson for Watson’s attorney declined to provide them.

Watson’s lawyer, Nancy Erika Smith, wrote in the statement, “Ms. Watson was raped by a basketball player during her sophomore year at Duke. She went to the Dean, who provided no help and discouraged her from pursuing the claim further. Ms. Watson also told friends, including Justin Fairfax.”

Northam went on "CBS This Morning" in an interview that aired Monday in an effort to save his political career after reporters uncovered a racist photo on his medical school yearbook page.

At the top of the interview, Northam referred to "the first indentured servants from Africa" who arrived in Virginia, and is now facing backlash from critics accusing him of minimizing historic horrors with a euphemism for slavery.

He's technically correct. The first guys from Africa were indentured involuntarily and freed at the end of the term similarly to indentured whites, some of whom did not volunteer either at the time. It took a couple decades for lifetime hereditable slavery to develop.